Five steps to the Good Life.
By Brian Sullivan
Money can’t buy you love, but it sure does make it easier to have fun. And while disposable, consumable, and pharmaceutical products do a nice job of bringing in enough commission/bonus to pay the mortgage and spend a cozy lake weekend at the Super 8 each year, don’t forget it’s capital equipment sales that help you step up your entertainment/vacation game. So, if you plan on making 2023 the year you became famous in your company and industry, now is the time to give your equipment portfolio a little more love. And that is going to take a little equipment PRIDE:
Prospect:
So, whose job is it to prospect for new business? The answer is EVERYBODY. That means both manufacturer reps and distributor reps. To do it well, you need to focus on a select number of products each month (3-5). For my example below, let’s use a three-month time-period.
There are three categories you need to work on.:
- How many sales of each product do you need to make in that time frame?
- How many product demos would you need to do to create those sales?
- How many cold prospecting calls do you need get those meetings? For example, I want lab sales, but to get those five sales, I will need to do 15 lab demos. But to get 15 demos, I need to reach out to 45 prospects.
| PRODUCT | SALES | MEETINGS | PROSPECTS |
| Lab | 5 | 15 | 45 |
| Ultrasound | 10 | 20 | 60 |
| Laser | 3 | 10 | 50 |
| Stress | 1 | 5 | 20 |
| BP Monitor | 15 | 30 | 60 |
| Total | 34 | 80 | 235 |
So, what number do you think is the most important? If you said prospecting (45), you are correct. Meetings and sales are hard to come by if you don’t proactively create opportunities by reaching out to either cold or existing clients.
Rep Communication:
If you are in distribution, take time in your office before the end of the year to determine which manufacturers you should be partnering with. Remember, not all manufacturers and reps are created equal. Look for well-known brands or cool new technologies that also have great sales reps to support you. By teaming up with the right partners, you will find that together you will create more leads, more meetings/demos, and more sales. And the same applies to manufacturer reps. You don’t need 20 great distribution reps who think about your equipment first thing when they wake up in the morning (although it would be nice.) You need between five and seven. And those five to seven need your absolute five-star attention.
In the Call:
When manufacturer and distributor reps do a joint call or product demo together, it’s important that they discuss specific roles during that call. If they don’t, the risk is that they will be talking over each other, and the communication/meeting will be disjointed. Take a few minutes before you walk in (or turn on your Zoom camera) and split up duties. For example, the distributor rep may start the call with a greeting and a recap of the initial prospecting call. The manufacturer rep may then ask deeper discovery questions and present their solution based on what they learned was important to the prospect. They may also be “in charge” of overcoming any sales objections. You just need to make sure there is clarity in those roles.
Decision-Time:
Once you receive buying signals and buying noises (like hmm, interesting, I like it), somebody needs to control the call. Remember, the financial presentation is as important as a good clinical presentation, so you need to master it. The best time to deliver that financial presentation is NOW. When possible, don’t tell them you are going to get back to them with a proposal. Have three different product/pricing options available and present them immediately after you have built the emotional momentum. This means you need to prepare the financials before you ever attend that demo/meeting. When salespeople don’t take the time to do this before the call, they often struggle creating that same prospect urgency days or weeks later.
Explore:
The best time to explore for additional capital equipment opportunities is immediately after a prospect says “yes” to the capital equipment opportunity you just presented. Too many salespeople are so elated to sell something that they’re afraid they will sound too pushy by bringing up another piece of equipment.
Before you walk into that demo/presentation, think about the ancillary or cross-sell products that would be a perfect fit with the product you are showing. And after you get that “yes” on product one, set another hook by saying something like, “Doctor, we look forward to training your staff. By the way, many clinics who found value in our connected EKG also found value in being able to monitor heart rhythms over an extended period. Would you be interested in learning how others are combining the use of an EKG and Holter monitor?” By simply being prepared with that final exploration hook, you will be amazed how often you turn one opportunity into two.
With a little PRIDE and better preparation, 2023 could be your best capital equipment selling year. And the by-product will be higher commission checks that will allow you to do and see things that you haven’t even thought of in a while. It’s time for the Good Life.
PRECISE Selling Founder Brian Sullivan, CSP, is the author of the book 20 Days to the TOP – How the PRECISE Selling Formula Will Make You Your Company’s Top Sales Performer in 20 Days or Less. He also hosts a Radio/Podcast with MLB Hall of Famer George Brett called Golf Underground on ESPN Kansas City. To learn more, go to preciseselling.com.